View full sizeSeventh-grade counselor Jill Fletcher, left, and sixth-grade counselor Julie VanTol display their "Hero in the Hallway" t-shirts at White Pine Middle School, 505 N. Center in Saginaw Township on Wednesday, Jan. 16. White Pine has implemented the new program to promote "niceness" in the school. Students and staff members who do good deeds or acts of kindness can be nominated and are selected and honored on a regular basis.Jeff Schrier | Mlive.com

SAGINAW, MI — Noor Siddiqui, an eighth-grader at White Pine Middle School, says she has seen a change since the Hero in the Hallway program was implemented at the beginning of the school year.

“I notice that there’s a lot less bullying than in sixth and seventh grade.”

Siddiqui, 13, says the Hero in the Hallway program helps students report bullying incidents, as well as reward good deeds.

“I think it’s a really good program because it gives a way for bullying to be known without the person knowing who reported them,” she said. “...So I feel like it’s a good program to have because it settles a lot of bullying, and it just makes people happier, too, when they find out that they got nominated.”

White Pine Principal Kristen Hecht said the program, which is led by the school’s sixth, seventh and eighth grade counselors, is meant not only to prevent bullying but to help promote kindness.

“We’re looking at working on the overall culture and the bystander,” Hecht said. “The victim, the bully, the bystander — and that largest group is the bystander. And giving them the tools to know how to react, how to report it, how to intervene, to make the situation better.”

Sixth-grade counselor Julie VanTol said there are Hero in the Hallway boxes positioned in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade buildings, along with forms students and staff can fill out to anonymously report bullying or nominate heroes.

Hecht said while the students don’t have to sign their names to bullying reports, they often do.

“Very rarely do we get anonymous. They sign their names,” she said. “Because they want it to stop, too.”

VanTol said the hero program started in Chicago and there are a few other schools in Michigan that participate, as well.

Seventh grade counselor Jill Fletcher said the state has required all school districts to develop an anti-bullying policy, which Saginaw Township schools has, but “we just decided we wanted to do something more.”

The students who are nominated as heroes are recognized and receive prizes, such as Hero in the Hallway bracelets and T-shirts, passes to go to the front of the lunch line with a friend and iTunes or 7-Eleven gift cards.

One of Siddiqui’s teachers recently nominated her as a hero for being helpful.

“It was really nice when I found out I was,” she said.

Justin LeRoux, 14 and an eighth-grader at White Pine Middle School, was nominated as a hero after helping a friend who was being bullied.

“It’s a really good new thing that we’ve started. It really helps protect people like my friend and other people.”

LeRoux said sometimes students are nominated for trivial things, such as picking up a pencil someone else dropped.

“That’s just something you should do normally,” he said.

But other times students are nominated for greater acts of kindness. And, overall, he has noticed more kind things being done.

“There are a lot more people that are helping each other instead of just walking by.”

VanTol said the boxes are checked daily and there tends to be more positive reports than negative ones.

“In the sixth grade, in the past two weeks, I’ve had zero negative reports and all of them were positive.”

White Pine Middle School also has had guest speakers come, including anti-bullying advocate Kevin Epling. His son, Matt Epling, for whom Matt's Safe School Law was named, killed himself after being assaulted in a hazing incident.